The Pinch Podcast

After a few weeks spent asking whether we were being too harsh, or perhaps not harsh enough, this week we’re trying something different.

Positivity. No, really.

With the international break offering some much-needed distance, Sam, Riley and David look for genuine reasons to be cheerful about Sheffield United: returning players, a system that worked last season, a run of fixtures that suddenly looks more inviting, and the possibility that the opening eight games were tougher than they first appeared.

There are caveats, obviously. Quite a lot of them.

But if United are going to change the mood around this season, the next eight games look like a very good place to start.

Every great era eventually ends.

In the final part of our Dave Bassett trilogy, we reach the downfall: relegation from the Premier League and the gradual sense that the spark which had carried United from Division Three to the top flight had fizzled out.

Back-to-back promotions had taken Sheffield United into the top flight. Staying there was another matter entirely.

In part two of our Dave Bassett special, Andrew Hague, Paul, Deadbat and Richard pick up the story with United winless in their first 16 games, seemingly doomed by Christmas and Bassett insisting, against all available evidence, that they would stay up.

Well, that didn’t age brilliantly.

Last week, we asked whether we were being too harsh on Sheffield United. Results were decent to good. The table looked healthy enough. Maybe we were spending too much time worrying about performances and not enough time enjoying the points.

After back-to-back losses, let’s invert the question.

Are we being harsh enough?

Because if the underlying performances were already setting off alarm bells, what happens when the results don’t provide cover?

How do you tell the story of the Dave Bassett era? You don’t. Not in one podcast, anyway.

In the first of a special three-part Memory Lane, Andrew Hague is joined by Paul, Deadbat and Richard to go back to where it all began: a struggling Sheffield United side and a manager who initially made things worse before changing the club completely.

This is the story of how Bassett took United from the third tier to the top flight, and created one of the most beloved Blades teams of a generation.

There’s one big question this week: are we being too harsh?

United haven’t exactly set the Championship alight, but they’ve lost just once, sit four points off the top and are already in a far healthier position than they were at this stage last season.

So does any of the rest really matter?

Sam, Riley and David look at the gap between results and performances, whether underlying numbers should temper the mood after a win, and whether fans sometimes need to simply enjoy three points rather than immediately ask how sustainable they are.

Because a win is a win.

But if that’s all that matters, why bother watching the game?

On this episode of Hang It in the Louvre, we welcome lifelong Blade Paul Kemp into the Pinch Wing to curate three defining Sheffield United images.

Paul has been going regularly since 1987, watching from the Kop and carrying the red-and-white flag into exile in south Derbyshire. And he has brought some marvels along with him: the Kop without a roof, the Blades without a care in the world, or so it seemed, and the sweetest taste of the century.

David, Sam and Riley pick through an unbeaten start that still doesn’t feel especially convincing. There’s plenty on Romelle Donovan, Sheffield United’s midfield problem, whether the underlying numbers can possibly hold up, and what the transfer window has actually left Chris Wilder with.

Plus: Kalvin Phillips, Liam Kitching, free agents, the ownership vacuum and a Norwich side whose numbers look almost the exact opposite of United’s.

Thanks to everybody who submitted a question - we’ve done our best to answer them along the way!

One great goalkeeper is a luxury. Sheffield United somehow ended up with three.

On this episode of Memory Lane, Andrew Hague is joined by Ian Parkes to revisit the remarkable early-90s era of Simon Tracey, Mel Rees and Alan Kelly: three keepers who, at their best, could each make a claim to being among the best the Blades have ever had.

The first Formline of the season proper has actual form to discuss - a sliver, at least.

Sam, Riley and David dig into the tactical shift behind the Blades’ start: far less possession, far fewer chances, a much tighter defensive shape and some eye-catching numbers at both ends of the pitch.

Is Wilder building the foundations of a play-off push, or has the correction gone too far? Where are the goals supposed to come from? And how long will supporters tolerate percentage football if the wins don’t follow?

Plus: Swansea, Cardiff, the curious case of the central midfield, deadline-day risks, Adam Webster, Ben Brereton Díaz, Tom Cannon and the Premier League loans that could still shape the season